


Laundry Day

by Morgan Briarwood (morgan32)



Series: Roadhouse Days...and Nights [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgan32/pseuds/Morgan%20Briarwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ash is injured on a hunt. Jo helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laundry Day

**Author's Note:**

> Two years ago, I wrote [No Place Like Home](http://archiveofourown.org/works/90640), which paired Jo and Ash up. Recently, someone left a comment on that fic, which prompted me to read it again, and my Jo/Ash muse suddenly showed up again. This fic isn't ship...but it might be going that way.

Jo hammered on the bathroom door with her fist. “Ash! That you?”

It couldn’t be anyone else: it was early morning so the Roadhouse was empty and Ellen was on her way to the wholesalers for supplies. But Ash had been missing for a couple of days and Jo hadn’t heard him return.

“Yeah!” he called back over the sound of the shower.

“Well, don’t use all the hot water. It’s laundry day.” Jo was a little relieved. If Ash was occupied in the bathroom, she could gather up the laundry from his room. Someday Hell would freeze over and Ash might then wash his own dirty clothes and sheets. Jo knew that if she didn’t do it for him, Ash would let it pile up in his room until her mom noticed the stink, and then they’d _both_ get reamed out. The unfairness of Jo being blamed for Ash’s mess wouldn’t save her from Ellen’s wrath.

She retrieved the laundry basket and opened the door to Ash’s room. Jo sighed heavily. There was clothing everywhere except the closet: jeans flung over the back of a chair, shirts and socks on the floor, more jeans, these covered with mud, on the floor beside the bed. Jo reached for the muddy denim. She shook them out and something clinked in the pocket. With a little smile, Jo pushed her fingers into the pocket and extracted a couple of coins and something else. She left the coins on Ash’s nightstand and looked at the other object. It took a few seconds before she recognised it.

It was a .45 calibre lead bullet, the flattened business end mute evidence that it had been fired. She brought it closer to her eyes and saw what she thought was blood in the grooves. Her heart beating a little faster, Jo pocketed the spent bullet and studied Ash’s discarded jeans more carefully. She found what she’d been afraid of: what she had initially taken for mud down the front of the pants was at least partly dried blood. Was it Ash’s blood?

Jo swallowed. She folded the bloody jeans and rolled them tightly so the blood didn’t show before she tossed them into the laundry basket. She picked up a shirt next, a frayed cotton shirt with the arms torn off: something Ash did to most of his shirts. He’d set his sleeve on fire once when soldering one of his circuit boards. As was typical of him, instead of being more cautious around an open flame, he removed what he saw as the problem and cut the sleeves off most of his clothing.

Finding no sign of blood on the shirt, Jo added it to the basket. When a hunter disappeared for a few days and returned with blood on his clothes, it was natural to jump to the worst conclusion. Perhaps this time it was nothing to worry about. 

She went around the room, picking up clothing and stuffing all of it into the basket without caring if it was dirty or not. She found socks, a few of them even in pairs, pants and t-shirts covered with oil and beer stains. There was no underwear. Ash didn’t wear it.

When she reached the unmade bed she hesitated, knowing she should change the bedding, but her basket was already over-full. The sheets didn’t seem dirty, just rumpled. She pulled the sheet straight and the movement revealed another shirt beneath the bed. Jo picked it up and shook it out. The shirt was torn and bloody. A hole in one side might have been a bullet hole and the cloth around it was stiff with dried blood. Several parallel slashes across the front – across the ribs if Ash had been wearing it – were also bloody and two buttons were missing. There was a third ragged tear about three inches long near the collar on the left. Jo’s mouth went dry.

“That’s private,” Ash said from behind her.

Jo whirled, hiding the bloody shirt behind her back in an automatic, if futile, gesture.

Ash wore nothing but a small towel, his skin and hair wet from the shower. The towel concealed very little and Jo could see clearly what the shirt had already told her. She gasped.

“Out,” Ash ordered, uncharacteristically curt.

“No way. You’re hurt. You gotta let me help.”

“I can take care of it.”

Jo dropped the shirt on top of her basket. “Okay,” she said agreeably. “I’ll just see if mom can fix this shirt...” It was an empty threat, but she was betting he wouldn’t realise Ellen was gone.

“Leave Ellen out of it,” Ash growled. He took a step into the room and slammed the door closed behind him.

That was as close as Ash would ever get to asking for help. Jo saw how he clutched the wall for support and took a step forward. Ash dropped the towel to free his other hand and held Jo’s shoulder to steady himself when she reached him. She paid no attention to his nudity and concentrated on the injuries she could see. When Ash closed the bedroom door, he had plunged the room into darkness. His room had no windows, and the only light came from the LEDs of various gadgets scattered around the room and from the computer screen. As Jo’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could see that something with claws had slashed Ash’s ribs. One of the cuts was still bleeding, a trickle of blood heading for his navel. The wound on his collarbone looked bad: a dark purple bruise spread across his shoulder and the flesh was torn ragged. Jo saw no fresh blood, though, so although it looked horrible it was probably superficial. Was it a bite? She looked for the bullet wound but she was on the wrong side of him and his body was turned slightly away, which hid the place where she would expect to see it. But the weight of Ash against her body, leaning on her for support, told her she had no time to lose. The idiot had gotten himself hurt and instead of heading for the nearest ER he drove home and just jumped in the shower. Hadn’t even asked for help, even though he knew Ellen had a lot of practice patching up hunters. Moron!

Ash began to move toward the bed, leaning hard on Jo’s shoulder. Jo stepped with him, snapping a light on as they passed it. The room filled with a blue-ish light. They reached the bed and Ash sat down, groaning. 

In the brighter light, Jo could see how much he was struggling. She wanted to run and get Ellen. But Jo had barely even glanced at the door when Ash grasped her arm firmly.

“No. I can’t take it right now.”

Jo didn’t need to ask. Ellen’s tongue was sharper than a hunter’s knife and she didn’t always pick the right time to tear a strip off someone when she was angry. She nodded, not mentioning how useless her impulse was. 

“Okay. Do you have a medkit in here?”

Ash nodded toward the shelf. Jo lifted the box down and opened it on the bed. “What did this to you?” she asked.

“I didn’t ask it for an introduction,” Ash answered.

Jo rolled her eyes. “You went hunting without even knowing what it was?” She knew that kind of investigation was part of a hunt, but she wouldn’t have gone in without a theory at least. None of the hunters she knew would. She found a curved needle, thread and a bottle of iodine in the box. She began cleaning the needle. “Did you kill it?”

“Reckon I did,” Ash said. “Left it in four pieces, anyway.” He looked at the needle in her hands apprehensively. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

Jo grinned at him. “Even if I don’t, it’s me or mom. Pick.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Bitch.”

Jo’s grin became her sweetest smile. “Not the smartest thing to say to me right now, Ash.” 

He simply leaned back, giving her access to his wounds. Ash had cleaned the cuts in the shower, though probably only with soap. Blood tricked down his skin, tin red trails over his abs. Jo used a piece of gauze to clean up the fresh blood, examining the cuts by eye. She saw no sign of anything still in the skin. Should she use peroxide or something? Well...she needed to clean the needle with it anyway. 

“It only needs two or three stitches, but it’s gonna hurt. You should bite on something,” Jo advised. She poured peroxide onto a piece of gauze, used it to clean the needle and her hands, then got a fresh piece for the wounds.

Ash picked up a belt from the floor beside the bed. Even that movement drew a grunt of pain from him. Jo waited while he folded the leather in two and stuffed it into his mouth. Ash nodded to her and shut his eyes.

Jo wiped the open wounds quickly with the peroxide. Ash stiffened, but made no sound. She picked up the needle and sterile thread. 

Jo had never done this before. She’d helped Ellen often and watched her stitch up wounds far worse than Ash’s. Still, her hands shook as she brought the needle to his skin. She could see where the stitch had to go, the place where the gash gaped open, so Ash’s every movement stopped it from healing. Ash’s skin was slick and her fingers slipped. The needle slid into the wound.

Ash reacted sharply. He jerked away from her, crying out around the belt.

“Sorry!” Jo said quickly. She tried again and this time the needle pierced the skin where she intended. Ash cried out again. 

Feeling slightly more confident, Jo pushed the curved needle through to catch the other edge of the gash and completed her first stitch. She knotted it and paused while she considered where to place the next.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Ash said.

“Two more to go,” Jo reminded him.

Ash muttered something she didn’t quite hear, but she guessed it was uncomplimentary. She grinned and started the next stitch.

She got the second in place, but fumbled a bit on the third. Her hands were sweating and she knew she was hurting Ash. When she was done, she examined the wound, wondering if it needed a fourth. It seemed to be holding. But Jo saw something else, too: a pale, jagged line on the left of Ash’s abs – an older, long-healed injury, too rough to be a surgical scar. This wasn’t the first time he’d been hurt hunting.

Jo wiped her hands and searched Ash’s medkit for a dressing large enough to cover all three cuts. The largest one she found wasn’t wide enough, but it would have to do. She pulled the backing off the dressing and stuck it down carefully. Then she looked up at Ash.

He pulled the belt out of his mouth. “You did okay,” he said. “Slow. But okay.”

She figured that was the best she deserved. “What about this?” She indicated the injury she thought was a bite, but didn’t touch it.

“It’s okay. Hurts like hell, but it’s not deep.”

“You should keep it covered.”

“I will, _mom_ ,” he answered.

Jo made a rude gesture. “Turn around so I can see your other side.”

Ash didn’t move. “You saw that, huh?”

Jo pulled the used bullet from her pocket. “I found this in your pants.” She met his eyes, waiting. She was almost certain the bullet was a .45. Ash’s usual gun was a .38.

His eyes narrowed a little. “Leave it, Jo.” There was a warning in Ash’s voice that Jo rarely heard from him. She knew Ash better than most people and she knew there was steel underneath the drunken, eccentric image he put out there. On the rare occasions he drew a line, Jo knew better than to cross it. So she stifled her curiosity, nodded and offered the bullet back to him.

Ash took it. “Do me a favour, Jo. Steal me some liquor. It works better than aspirin.”

Jo wouldn’t steal from the bar, but she nodded. “I’ll find something for you. Whiskey or Tequila?” She glanced around the floor. “You got anything else that needs cleaning? Mom’ll yell at both of us if I don’t start the laundry soon.”

He stretched out on the bed and pulled the sheet over, finally covering his nakedness. “I’m good with anything. Thanks.”

He hadn’t answered her question about the laundry, but she let it go. That was just Ash being Ash, which was a good sign. He would be okay.


End file.
